Believing in Love
by leesungyeol
Summary: stupid title I know. Just stuff about Sherlock and his love for John.


**The Curious Case of Doctor John Watson and His Differences **

_Love is a much more vicious motivator. _

Sherlock didn't believe in love. It was something else other people fell into. Feeble, weak beings that couldn't control their emotions. Sherlock Holmes was very good at limiting his emotions. He didn't take an interest to anybody or anything – anything apart from his work. When he communicated with people his heart felt nothing. When he studied dead bodies he did not feel pain, nor did he feel any sympathy. Sherlock Holmes was a heartless man, and everybody understood that. Everybody acknowledged that. Nobody questioned, and nobody argued.

Everybody except Doctor John Watson.

The first time Sherlock had laid eyes upon the army doctor he did not react any differently. He was just another man that walked upon the world. He was as easy to get through to as anybody else – the astonishment upon Dr. Watson's face did not surprise Sherlock, but perhaps that tiny spark of impression did. Not once had the consulting detective met somebody who had reacted in the same way that the doctor did when Sherlock had analysed every unimportant detail that rested upon him. Not once had he come across somebody who absent-mindedly blurted out _fantastic__!_ after concluding one of the most ordinary deductions.

Appointing John Watson as his assistant seemed like a perfectly reasonable thing to do.

The realization that the doctor was different from any other men did not come straight away, however. Each case was a stepping stone to the other side of the river. A Study in Pink was the case that made Sherlock realize perhaps he had made the right decision – he would have died if John Watson had not been there. Assuming he had chosen the incorrect pill, of course. John Watson had saved his life, even after practically two days of being aware of each other's existence.

The Blind Banker was strange. John had proved that he was help in ways other than saving lives – while Sherlock was completely unaware he lacked common sense until John had pointed it out to him with the most simplest of things. There were times when Sherlock was honestly surprised by how smart John was, with such limited skills compared to Sherlock.

And finally, the Great Game was rather different. Sherlock was not impressed by John – in fact, he was frustrated by his constant ability to feel. To care for things that were not important. To mourn over the people threatened and dying. It was such an alien thing for the detective to come across, and he was uncertain how to handle it.

_Don't make people into heroes, John, heroes don't exist, and if they did I wouldn't be one of them._

The look in John's face was confusing after Sherlock had bluntly told him this. It was as if he was wrong, that perhaps they did exist, and maybe not in the form that was so typically used. Maybe they existed as people you would never acknowledge as – maybe, just maybe, those people who saved lives without even knowing it could be the heroes of reality.

That night, before the events of the pool, where they both sat in the same room involved in different things – John blogging and Sherlock watching crap telly – where John had stood up and claimed he had to go and see Sarah made Sherlock's stomach churn. Sarah. The first time Sherlock and John's girlfriend met he had a small feeling in his stomach that he couldn't quite identify, but every time the woman's name was mentioned Sherlock refused to believe he actually felt jealousy. He attempted to remember those words that he had declared so long ago – _I don't believe in love_. How can you be jealous when you don't have any feelings? When you've been reliably informed that you don't have a heart?

How can you be in love John Watson when you can't _understand_?

_I stopped him. I can stop John Watson, too. Stop his heart._

Sherlock had never felt so much hate in his life – so much hate for a singular man. For Jim Moriarty and his psychopathic tendencies, for his flirty attitude, his mood swings – and above all, his overall nerve to threaten John. To threaten him when Sherlock knew that he cared for him more than he cared for anybody else. Maybe 'care' was an understatement. Even if Sherlock tried to deny it, he knew he couldn't get rid of it – get rid of the fact that he loved John.

He loved him more than he had loved any other human being.

_I'll burn you. I'll burn… the _heart_ out of you._

_I have been reliably informed that I don't have one._

_But we both know that's not quite true._

And Sherlock did not deny Jim Moriarty's claim – because standing in the pool with the rifle in his hand pointing to the most dangerous man in the world, he knew what – or who – was his heart.

Doctor John Watson.


End file.
